Posts Tagged image URL

For some time there was no straightforward way to get the URLs of photos in Windows Live SkyDrive albums. With the recent update (November 2011) there is now easy access to the original photos stored in SkyDrive.

The information pane for a photo now contains a “View original” link. So with just one click the browser goes to and displays the original. The URL can be easily copied from the browser address bar.

SkyDrive web addresses, URLs, are incredibly long, typically more than 140 characters. No way can you write those done, so just copy the URL with Ctrl+C and then paste it to the destination with Ctrl+V. This works just fine with the Live Writer Insert – Picture tool. Click From the web… to open the Insert Web Image dialog.

The photo is previewed in the dialog window. Click Insert to place it into your post.

The image will be inserted in full size and most likely overflow the blog margins and the Live Writer window. In the Size group of the Picture Tools ribbon click Lock aspect ratio, then you can resize the image to fit as you like. Remember you can replace the size value to obtain a custom size, you are not limited to the presets of Small, Medium, or Large.

If you forget to click Lock aspect ratio the resized image will be stretched or squashed, just redo the operation.

By default, for an imported web image, the Link to: setting will be None. If you wish to link to the actual image in SkyDrive or to another web address, click the down arrowhead next to the option, then select Web address… the Insert Hyperlink dialog opens. You will need to paste the URL of the image or whatever you want to link to. Be sure to fill in the Title: field. If you don’t see the field, click Advanced. The text in the Title: field will be shown in a text balloon when a viewer hovers the pointer on the image in your post.

If you wish to link to the image in your album as shown in SkyDrive, use the image address for this photo, do not get and insert the Embed code (offered in the information pane). The embed code is an “iframe” set that is stripped out by WordPress for wordpress.com blogs. It can be used on webpages and self-hosted blogs. But that is really another topic.

One note of caution: The SkyDrive sharing system has been extensively revised. The prior settings have been “grand-fathered” in. I urge you to carefully learn the new approach to sharing. Files and photos take the share setting of the containing folder (or album), they can also be shared individually. For sharing images in a public blog, be sure that the image sharing is set to Everyone, either for the photo or for the containing folder.

As you can see in the illustration at the right, the new, simpler system is anything but. Sharing is sure to cause a lot of confusion and there are bound to be changes soon.

Nikon myPicturetown is a photo sharing site that offers a convenient way of storing images and obtaining their URLs for sourcing to blogs and websites. What gives this service additional appeal is the ability to share a photo album without the viewer being provided access to your other albums on the site. Although aimed at users of Nikon cameras, anyone can register a free account with 2 GB of storage. Setting up an account is straight-forward: Just go to myPicturetown and click “New Registration (Free)”.

Sign-up has the usual onerous “Terms and Conditions” but does not ask for much besides name and email address. You do need Adobe Flash Player installed to use the site and Adobe AIR is required for the upload tool, a desktop app.

Uploading images to myPicturetown

The upload process is simple but a bit unusual. Double-clicking the desktop shortcut brings up the Japanese language version of the upload window then quickly launches your browser and goes to your MyPicturetown account. If you selected to stay signed in on your prior visit you will not need to sign in. The account home page shows a collage of some of your photos – nice – and a small Nikon ad which can be closed – a small price to pay for the service.

Click Upload (lower left of collage) and the desktop app opens – this time for me in English. This is a drag and drop procedure and works very smoothly. The album to upload to can be selected or a new one created. Click Upload and the process starts. For each file there is a progress bar showing the portion already uploaded. Even during this upload process additional images can be added to the window and will be uploaded.

Note of caution: Not all file types are accepted. You can upload JPG files but not PNG files.

Note of caution: You can upload photos in their original size, however, you cannot use or link to the full size images if they are larger than 1024 pixels horizontally, for vertical images the max size is even smaller. This is similar to the way Flickr works. However, the full size images are available to you for downloading.

Getting the image URL

Once your images are stored in an album on your myPicturetown site, getting URLs to the images is a very simple matter. If your uploaded images are larger than 1024 pixels (max horizontal dimension) only down-sized images will be available as links. Navigate to your MyPicturetown album and click the thumbnail of interest. Click the “i”, , in the tool bar to open an information pane on the left. Scroll down to see a section labeled Blog Links: – see Nikon provided for your needs. For most images three sizes are offered and the pixel dimensions are shown. For images larger than 1024 px scaled down images are offered. For very small images only one or two sizes might be shown. For example, for the “i” image here only the actual 42×44 pixels size is offered.

The illustration on the right shows what I am talking about.

Click the size you want, the URL is shown in the Link URL: box. Click it to select it then press Ctrl+C to copy the address to your clip board.

Using the image URL

In Live Writer click the Picture command (in the Insert group on the Home ribbon, or in the Media group on the Insert ribbon).

Select From the web …, in the Insert Web Image dialog paste (Ctrl+V) the address into the Picture web address: field. The main area will show a thumbnail of the image. Note my clever illustration here of the dialog window showing a screen clip of the insert operation.

All the images in this article are sourced from my myPicturetown site. In fact, I kept the upload app open as I prepared this post and uploaded the illustrations as I needed them. One of the illustrations links to a larger image, move the pointer over the images to see the one (all right, it is the one showing the blog links).

Getting a link to a slide show is more complicated, you need to “share” the album (click the icon in the tool bar). Sharing is done by sending an email which contains the link, a very long URL. See this illustrated in my Café Ludwig post Sharing Photos with myPicturetown

Nikon myPicturetown is a very blog friendly site. You will likely be as impressed with as I am.